The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

We stopped for a night in the longhousewhere the Dayaks live in congresseach family extended among itselfon platforms stilted high for breezesbut also against floods, animals, and Umot,

the beasts who rule the Borneo night. UmotSisi look like wild men, covered in hair;they whoosh and whoop with the windamong the trees until the morning shineson branches denuded of their fruit and nuts.

We hoped to see such fearsome brutes in fullmoonlight but the chief said, “Sisi are notfools; they wait for darker skies and fuller forests.But you will hear Umot Perubak beneath usin the shadows of the longhouse where they

snort as they take their fill of our droppingsand our garbage and any pup or child whofails to keep to the longhouse after dusk.”After midnight, we heard Perubak munchingand felt the foul odors of their breath

between the floorboards. But what riled uswas the patter of claws and the rippingof our backpacks. “What?” we yelled,while the chief pointed to the rafters where “Perusong, the slyest of all Umot, enter

even our longhouse at will with the powerof transparency. Or they take the formof rats and devour all we rely on and live for.There. You see.” I saw the rats. “Why don’t youtrap them?” “If they were rats,

we would use traps, But against UmotPerusong, incarnations of Evil,we have potions, spells, and ancient craftsour shamans have devised and ordain.Only this faith in magic keeps our fears at bay.”

Sunday, November 27, 2005

by Thomas D. ReynoldsDragging his chain,the dog nears the car.I judge at oncethe level of threat.His chain is small.He's no rebel, but a pupwho doesn't know whatto do with his freedom.Oh, he raced for the squirrel,chased a squirrel,but now he is tired,devoid of ideas, and lonely,jowly imploring facestaring through the glass.The chain tugged himall through the grass.Not recognizing my face,he makes his way up the street,to lie on his front stepand wait for the blue car,the harried masterto see the chain,swat his nose,and tie him up."Good dog!"

Thomas D. Reynolds received an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University, currently teaches at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, Flint Hills Review, The MacGuffin, The Cape Rock, The Pedestal Magazine, Eclectica, Strange Horizons, Combat, 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, and Ash Canyon Review.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Fake butter flavored fumes won’t make you fat,but they kill your lungs in the Gilster-Mary LeeJasper, Missouri microwave popcorn factory.And a jury has determined thatthe smell will get you millionsif you were a popcorn packer whocollected wages mixing the offending gooand halved your years compared to other civilians.Was trading your time on earth any strangerthan dancing with that impostor flavor,choosing it instead of your life to savor?Now workers wear respirators to avoid the danger,while lawyers invade this sleepy soybean townto drink coffee at Judy’s Café and hang around.

Mike Marks is a baby-boomer, the middle child of five born in a six year span. His mom escaped to teach horseback riding full-time, obviously overwhelmed by her progeny. His dad was a traveling shoe salesman. Gwendolyn Brooks became his mentor in 1967. Mike is riding his poetry horse somewhere between Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan. Anita and he had their own five children, while he operated an art gallery for thirty years. The children are gone, but the poetry stays.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

A year ago, I began singing in an Episcopal church choir as 2nd bass-baritone, joking: "I'm one of the singing apes!" after seeing a TV-documentary on a family of singing tree-apes marking their aerial territoryby singing out its boundaries to each other, from tree to tree. Singing's output; eating's input; 'sing' for simi@n-supper & eat it.Few 1st-world poets refuse to, so Gary Corseri's daring us torefuse by f@sting on this day.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

'People are starting to want to know moreabout the food they put in their bodies,' Patrick Martins of Heritage Foods USA,said on Thursday. --Reuters

He watches one video three times, wishing he'd invested in a larger monitor. He watches two other videos, then goes back to the first. Aunt Stacy, they've named her. Small-breasted but well-bred. No drug ever entered her body, or her mother's body. Her lineage can be traced back to the mid 1800s. She seems happy running about in the sun, doesn't get ruffled when others try to share her midday snack. YES! He calls his wife in from the kitchen, shows her the video. She nods, smiles, then begins calling the family. They're all looking forward to Thanksgiving. Her sister's bringing the sweet potatoes, her daughter's bringing two apple pies and a pumpkin pie, her son's bringing more wine than they'll ever use, Aunt Stacy will arrive fresh from Heritage Farms the morning before.

Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com

Monday, November 21, 2005

The army spokesmanexplaining the useof the diminutivecluster bombsby American forcesin every war since Vietnamsays bomblets are smallshaped chargesthat fall to earthon tiny parachutesand are capable of penetrating steelof up to five inches thickand are used for attackingarmored vehiclesand troop concentrations,bunkers and otherdispersed targets.It's their diminutive size, he says,and bright colorwhen they alight unexplodedand sit in a fieldor a meadowor a backyard,deadly,that makes them intriguingto passersby,especially children,and gives them their name.

Paul Hostovsky has recent work in Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, ByLine, Switched-on Gutenburg, New Delta Review, Alimentum, White Pelican Review, FRiGG and others. He works in Boston as an interpreter for the deaf.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

CHORUS:If you knew my story if you heard my songI bet you'd decide you've been looking at things all wrongIf you saw this old world through my eyesI got a funny feeling that you'd really be surprised

VERSE: No she can't hear you when you speakYou could just go on thinking she's out of reachAnd he can't see you when you come inYou could keep right on pretending you don't see him

CHORUS:But if you knew his story if you heard her songI bet you'd decide you've been looking at things all wrongIf you saw this old world through their eyesI got a funny feeling that you'd really be surprised

VERSE: Yes he's failed every test you giveIn the back of your mind you wonder 'bout his right to liveI spend my whole life in this chairIt's so easy to overlook me like I'm not here

CHORUS:But if you knew my story if you heard his songI bet you'd decide you've been looking at things all wrongIf you saw this old world through our eyesI got a funny feeling that you'd really be surprised

CHORUS/TAG:If you knew my story if you heard my songI bet you'd decide you've been looking at things all wrongIf you saw this old world through my eyesI got a funny feeling that you'd really be surprisedI got a funny feeling you'd really be surprisedYou'd recognize the way that you've been treating us is a crime

During the 1970s Karl Williams worked with children with cognitive disabilities. His prose and poems have been published in magazines and books; songs from his five CDs have been aired on television and radio around the world. Williams' first play is now being made into a film.

Deborah P. Kolodji's first chapbook, Seaside Moon by Saki Press, is a winner of the Virgil Hutton Haiku Memorial Chapbook Award. She is one of 16 haiku poets selected by Red Moon Press to appear in The New Resonance 4: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku.

Friday, November 18, 2005

by Jen HintonStrandedon rooftopsin Ohio precinctsby roadside bombsby Enron, Exxonby stop lossby freedom on the march.Sorry Rosa.Sorry Cindy.What on God’s sweet green earth will it take to get millions into the streets?Here.Do we think some better reasonis coming alongtomorrow?Jen Hinton lives in Schaumburg, Illinois. She has been published in several anthologies, including Skin Deep, Prairie Hearts, and Alternatives: Roads Not Taken.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

no inchalong the roadwould be given to youon a measured journey of milesthe distance between stopssomehow moved mebackward

but oncethe day arosefor you to be seatedwhere freedom often found itselfi was moved forward, blacklike those wheels ofprogress

we turneda right corner—left injustice fumingin the movement’s exhausting wakeat last we grew closerto being first…human

Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "Passage Way" above is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").

while horses reappear on Bourbon Street,born again the electric atmosphere that

Conjured the exceedingly small lovewhich may play underneath,banging skinhard enough to raise the dead.

Born 1959 and raised in the New York city area, Paul Renato Toppo graduated from the University of Connecticut with degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics. He has lived in Spain, Puerto Rico and México and currently works in Trenton, New Jersey, but spends half the year in Mexico City with his son, who continues to be his adoration.

Monday, November 14, 2005

A meteorite hunter has discovered a million-dollar gemseven feet below a field in southern Kansas:an asteroid to make collectors drool, says its finderwho will sell it to a museum for study and display.

The rare oriented pallasite—conical and crystallineand fourteen hundred pounds—did not tumble toward earth,according to scientists, but followed a stable trajectorycenturies ago to what is now the State of Kansas.

But that State, unsure meteors are anything morethan theoretical, may argue that the rock was placedwhere it was placed, at creation, in a place that alwayswas intelligently designed Kansas, and so it will

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Paris is burningnot of ballsno transgendered murdersthis year they burn the ghettosboys electric heatedfear runningover steel currents like lovers kissesif you break ityou can privatize itthe police feel hoods of youthif they’re dampthey've all been steelingand then I hear bodiesigniting in Fallujahwith white phosphorusthe skin gone the clothes intactdressed for their own funeralwhisky pete wilcoobscuration orincinerationthe stuff slipsthough your maskmud stops it by then it’s too latethey’re all terrorists

Laura Madeline Wiseman is an award winning writer teaching at the University of Arizona. Her works have appeared in 13th Moon, The Comstock Review, Fiction International, Poetry Motel, Driftwood, apostrophe, Moondance, Familiar, Spire Magazine, Colere, Clare, Flyway Literature Review, Nebula, and other publications. She is the Literary Editor for IntheFray and a regular contributor to Empowerment4Women.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Once upon a time in Persia (now Iran) there was a wise king whose beautiful wife was concealing her Jewish birth. His chief advisor was a man named Haman, who hated that the Jews would not bow down to him. Well now, this story could drag on and on, just as any war could. But suffice it to say that the king asked his advisor how to honor a man who had done much for him, and Haman assumed the king had him in mind. He, who pictured himself in royal dress paraded through the streets, found himself instead leading Mordechai's horse. Or so the bedtime story goes. The women sitting at the table nearest the President put down their salad forks and titter that such a man would ask for their advice, however facetiously. Then they resume eating, taking sips of white wine and delicate bites of their buttered onion rolls.

Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com

Thursday, November 10, 2005

by Katherine WestSometimes in dreams The war comes back to me and I remember dying I remember being killed –No breath Blackness and no breath—Stolen breath That was the worst part The theft Not dying but Being killed And killed And never finishing If you kill someone completely They are free This is what I didn’t know If you kill someone a little bit Each night They are slaves To the moments of non-killing And to the hope For an end Did my enemies know They were pros? Did they know I sent them my breath For years After the war was over I prayed to them for freedom I prayed to them for death They were hungry Like a gecko I fed them The tip Of my tail Which grew back During the day And fear I fed them Goblets of thick red fear To make them dizzy This is how I escaped Into dreams of captivity A garden of blood roses Blooming and breathing and Stealing my breath—Then the war was over I planted my own garden With roses white as babies Milk roses Who required constant feeding I had children and taught them How to nurse the roses We called it art—People came from miles around To view our blooms— We lovedThe applause My children dreamed of war Although they had never Known it They fed their tails To each other for a treat Washed down with fear By the gallon They wrapped their breath In packages Tied with string and sent off To mythical enemies they had never met Then I died—I finished dying I dreamed I died and it did not matter how—I did not forget It simply became Unimportant—The way one toeAlways walks with the othersThere we wereReady for our new adventure My toes and I My dreams and I My deaths My enemies My children All of us Setting out together Katherine West is a poet presently living in northern Colorado and teaching Creative Writing at the local community college, museum, and Naropa University, which is in nearby Boulder, Colorado. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The New Land, is due out this December from Howling Dog Press.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

"The government hasn't really realized we're facing a major political crisis," said Patrick Lozes, a political activist and president of the Circle for the Promotion of Diversity in France. "The French social model is exploding." In a country that has prided itself on its egalitarian social system, Lozes said, "black people and Arab people are not really considered to be from this country. They are considered an inferior group."

"People are shouting they want to be equal," said Christophe Bertossi, an immigration specialist at the French Institute for International Relations. "And the government is treating them as if they were criminals or terrorists."

--Washington Post, 8 November 2005

CLASSIC VERSE NEWS FROM 1925:

WHITE HOUSESby Claude McKay

Your door is shut against my tightened face,And I am sharp as steel with discontent;But I possess the courage and the graceTo bear my anger proudly and unbent.The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,A chafing savage, down the decent street;And passion rends my vitals as I pass,Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,And find in it the superhuman powerTo hold me to the letter of your law!Oh, I must keep my heart inviolateAgainst the potent poison of your hate.

The generation of poets who formed the core of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes and Countée Cullen, identified Claude McKay (1890-1948) as a leading inspirational force, even though he did not write modern verse. His innovation lay in the directness with which he spoke of racial issues and his choice of the working class, rather than the middle class, as his focus. --from an article by Freda Scott Giles.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

by Paul HostovskyOn Tuesday we mightdissect a squid.A squid is an invertebrate.It's squishy and hasan outer protective shellcalled an exoskeleton.It has a mantel and a jetpropulsion.It's a mollusk.A mollusk is a phylum.There are lots of speciesin a phylumbut there are only 8 phylain the whole thing,and California has the mostpopular peoplebecause they're worth55 electoral votes,and to be the presidentyou have to be bornin America,and you have to go toan electoral college,and you have to havea spine.Paul Hostovsky has recent work in Spoon River Poetry Review, Poet Lore, ByLine, Switched-on Gutenburg, New Delta Review, Alimentum, White Pelican Review, FRiGG among others. He works in Boston as an interpreter for the deaf.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Torture, or at least the cruelsatisfaction extracted, the bully’s gamesplayed at Abu Ghraib reminded meof a boy I’ll call Billy, de-winging flies.Mostly a sad showing off I now realize.They were, after all, only flies, he’d say,although I supposed you could workto death beating you missing wings.They were just flies and might well beenswatted, sprayed, stuck on fly paper to die.Or was the prison scandal more likethe frogs Billy found by the brookand inflated with straws stuck uptheir asses? They floated off, swimminghelplessly in air. “They’ll recover. Won’teven remember,” he said. They wereonly frogs after all and I presumeneither flies nor frogs feel shame orpost traumatic stress syndrome--but Billy?Billy, I’m sure, was never the same.

Born near the Chute River, Naples, Maine in 1926, Robert M. Chute taught and conducted research at Middlebury College, San Fernando State (CA), and Lincoln University (PA) before returning to Maine as Chair of Biology at Bates College. Now Professor Emeritus of Biology, Bates College, Chute has a record of scientific publication in Parasitology, Hibernation Physiology, General Biology, and Environmental Studies. His poetry and collage poems appear in many journals including Ascent, Beloit Poetry Journal, BOMB, The Cape Rock, Cafe Review, The Literary Review, Texas Review. His poetry books include a three language reissue of Thirteen Moons in English, French, and Passamaquoddy (2002), and most recently, a three chapbook boxed set, Bent Offerings, from Sheltering Pines Press (2003). He is currently working on a series of poems based on reading scientific journals such as Nature and Science.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

The sounds of mygirlfriend loading the dishwasherremind me of the marketplace in Sadr CityThe clinking clanging always-so-close-to-shattering –knives rub cold one against anothersharp along the spine, across the front of the throat.

A click could be…and a mix of shouts, angry Arabic, may be…and the general din escalates always louder and louder witha pulse of panic buriedbeneath the chaos of soundsound.

The sounds move, shake –take on a life insideand images flashand mix with voices, dishes, voices,images of the deadand dying.

Rick Wishcamper lives, writes, and works in Missoula, Montana. He recently completed an M.F.A. in Poetry at New England College and owns and operates a progressive real estate development business that searches for new solutions to the various problems of appearently conflicting needs between humans and ecosystems in western landscapes.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

by Gayle BrandeisWhen Blanche Dubois arrived in New Orleans,she was told to "take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields".After people in New Orleans were floodedout of their homes, after they were left to rotin the Superdome, they were told they could stayon a cruise ship named Sensation, a cruise shipnamed Holiday, a cruise ship named Ecstasy,three Carnival Cruise ships docked in the Gulf.Carnival charged FEMA more than their normaltourist fares, even though evacuees don't get the stage shows, the casino, the midnight buffet, even though they don't get the holiday, the sensation, the ecstasy. Blanche Dubois alwaysdepended on the kindness of strangers.What can we depend on but corporategreed, administrative indifference?Who can we turn to but one another, no longer strangers when the waters rise like desire,when the cemeteries float all around us,when the Elysian Fields are clotted with oiland the streetcars that could ferry us outare all submerged, like stones.Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperSanFrancisco), Dictionary Poems (Pudding House Publications), and The Book of Dead Birds: A Novel (HarperCollins), which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change. Her novel Self Storage will be published by Ballantine in 2007. She was named a Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine.

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Emails to The New Verse News that do not follow the guidelines printed at the top of this page and in this column will be deleted. Poets are reminded, therefore, NOT to send attachments unless specifically requested to do so.

Although the editors and audience of The New Verse News have a politically progressive bias, we welcome well-written verses of various visions and viewpoints.

In any event, opinions expressed in The New Verse News are those of the poems' writers (or, perhaps, only of the poems' speakers) and not necessarily those of the editors, the audience, or other contributors to the site.

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